12 Beneficial Creatures We Want To See In Our Gardens

April 22, 2014

Gardening for Beginners

When we began growing our own food in the Greenside Up garden, one of the early problems we encountered happened when we were trying to identify the ‘good’ wildlife from the ‘bad’. This was before the days of Google and we had no idea whether we were looking at friends or foe scampering across the plants and soil. It’s much easier to check today, but to help you encourage beneficial insects and other creatures into your garden, I’ve compiled a list of a dozen that might help you to ditch the chemicals for good and garden more sustainably.

List of 12 Friendly Creatures in Our Gardens

1. Worms

The hardworking invertebrate of the soil, worms are one of our number one friends. A lack of worms indicates a poor soil but adding lots of home-made compost or well-rotted organic matter will soon encourage them back. Here’s ten facts about earthworms you may not know. I was particularly surprised to learn that light paralyses them.

Song Thrushes like to eat slugs and snails and Blue Tits eat caterpillars. Buying bird feed that specifically encourages these species into your gardens will help to keep a check on the pests activities.

Carabid Beetles (or ground beetles) live mainly on the soil surface and are mostly black, brown or metallic green. The larvae prey on many insects, including slugs and pest eggs. If you’re laying beer traps to attract slugs and snails, always make sure the traps are positioned just above the soil line so that the beetles don’t accidentally fall in.

The majestic Devil’s Coach Horse Beetles are often found under stones, logs or pots. They eat slugs, cutworms and leatherjackets among other things.

Newcomers to gardening may be forgiven for thinking that ladybird larva look like something that will cause damage. If you do kill them, you’re ridding yourself of an
insect that can eat between 200-400 aphids before it pupates into the more familiar ladybird we’re accustomed to.

Only the larvae of hoverfly eat aphids but planting flowers such as limnanthes (poached egg flower) or any other yellow or white flowers that happen to be particularly attractive to them, will encourage hoverflies into your gardens and help to keep the aphid population down.

I know I’ve mistaken these for caterpillars in the past, a pest we don’t want on our veggies, so do look closely before you automatically rid your plants of all insects.

Again, ferocious eaters of aphids, the delicate lacewings can be attracted into your garden by careful planting. The female lacewings can lay up to 400 eggs. As they hatch and the larvae grow they can eat up to 600 aphids before they become adults, about a month later.

If you have an aphid infestation, try spraying a plant or two with a sugar-water solution (1 tablespoon sugar per 200ml water) which may help to attract lacewings.

Adding a pond has been on our list of garden improvements for a long time and hopefully we might manage it this year because frogs and toads just love to eat slugs and snails. Whether you have the space for a pond or just a small water feature, by it into your garden you are likely to attract more beneficial wildlife into your garden.

Stop using chemicals

If you’ve used chemicals of any description in your garden in the past, it may take a while for the natural balance to restore itself. However, by planting a broad range of insect attracting flowers, native hedgerows, adding organic matter on a regular basis or leaving out specific feeds to attract different creatures, you’ll begin to encourage all the beneficial creatures to return to your garden, helping to keep the bad guys at bay.

There are many other gardeners friends, from bats and ducks to parasitic wasps, did any in the list above surprise you? You might not like the idea of sharing the outdoors with a few of these but it’s unlikely you’ll come across too many of them as most are tiny and they like to keep themselves to themselves. Have you come across any creatures that could be added to the list? I’d love to hear about them.

Great list! I think I will send the kids out into the garden to see how many they can find…. that should pass a happy hour 😉 We love the obvious pollinators such as bees and butterflies too… and we are very excited to see our house martins have returned! That should keep the pesky midge population down a bit!

We had a one eyed hedgehog here for a while but he went and have never seen another dead or alive close by since. Ian and one of our daughters love spiders, our youngest is terrified, though I’ve always tried to hide my fear from them – almost succeeded too as eldest only discovered my fear last year.

If only I could attract hedgehogs 😉 The others are all welcome and I’ve seen most of them in the garden at one time or other. Yesterday it seemed every bit of straw I moved had a toad hopping out of it.

Reading your post I was struck with both horror at the picture of the spider (I’m actually fine with them outside!) and the cuteness of the hedgehog. It would be lovely to see more wildlife in the garden and it’s good to know they are doing important work.

The wildlife will do most of the work if we can encourage enough in and by planting lots of colourful flowers and protective hedging, our gardens look pretty too. Sorry about the spider, I deliberately made it a thumbnail!

[…] here’s a couple of posts that will point you in the right direction. The first one here on recognising the good guys, the second on recognising the bugs you don’t want to see hanging out in your vegetable […]

[…] When you build a bug hotel it’s difficult not to learn about the habitats of the beneficial creatures you’re hoping to attract. Ladybirds like dry sticks and leaves to hibernate in while lacewings enjoy bedding down among straw, cardboard and dry grass. These two insects in particular are excellent for keeping aphids at bay as their larvae have ferocious appetites for the little bugs, making them fantastic beneficial insects in our gardens. […]

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Who is Behind Greenside Up

Hi, my name is Dee Sewell, social and therapeutic horticulturalist, owner/manager of Greenside Up, community and vegetable garden tutor and author of this blog.
I began blogging back in 2009 when I started my Carlow/Kilkenny garden business and as a result the blog is now full of tips, tales, talk and tasty treats about Ireland, gardening, recipes, the environment, family life and community.
If you want to find more about how we came to live in Ireland and what we do, take a look in the About page or Contact me about how I can help you grow your own food.

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Brian Andrews, ID8

Gosh it’s so difficult to write a testimonial for someone as passionate about helping people as Dee. Encouraging and teaching people and communities how to be self-reliant and showing them how to grow their own foods is what Dee Sewell from Greenside Up is all about.

Ena Roynane, Horticultural Consultant, Garden Design Co

It’s my first year growing. Thanks to Greenside Up I’m aware of all the prep work and pest control so hopefully all will go well.

Tullow Family Resource Centre

Dee is one of the most inspirational entrepreneurs I know. Her passion, commitment to sustainable practices & generous sharing of her extensive knowledge have benefited local communities and individuals alike.

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School of Food, Herbs & Salad Workshop

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Tullow Family Resouce Centre Gardener

I recently attended a beginners workshop with Dee. Needing a basic guide to starting a home garden, we were reassured by her easy manner and the jargon free language. She introduced us to the basics of soil, plants, light and shade and shared some of her own gardening successes and failures. This workshop gave me the confidence to start digging!

MaryCarlow.

Dee is an excellent source of information, always answering questions in a simple and understandable manner, with a talent to convey a variety of subject in a clear, engaging and informative way. Her passion is very clear and infectious, and she has a great gift of being able to communicate her vast knowledge with people at their own level… a vital talent for a really good teacher/tutor.